Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Ackroyd, Peter - J. D. McClatchy (review date April 1989)

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J. D. McClatchy (review date April 1989)

SOURCE: “Mask and Passions,” in Poetry, Vol. CLIV, No. 1, April, 1989, pp. 29-48.

[In the following excerpted review, McClatchy offers a negative assessment of Ackroyd's poetry in The Diversions of Purley and Other Poems.]

Peter Ackroyd’s The Diversions of Purley is, in effect, a Selected Poems, incorporating as it does work from his previous collections, London Lickpenny (1973) and Country Life (1978). Whatever his other accomplishments—and Mr. Ackroyd is a marvelous novelist and biographer—his career in poetry has gotten nowhere over the years, and this representative view of it makes no strong or lasting impression. Frankly, his heart doesn’t seem to be in it. Poems may be witty, curious, fey, but rarely pay attention to their own purposes or possibilities. Lines ramble or dawdle, preoccupied with splicing bits of common speech with literary tags and clichés or...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Joseph Rykwert (review date July 1986)
   2. Michele Roberts (review date 11 September 1987)
   3. Peter Ackroyd with Amanda Smith (interview date 25 December 1987)
   4. Michael Neve (review date January 1988)
   5. J. D. McClatchy (review date April 1989)
   6. Peter Firchow (review date Autumn 1989)
   7. John Sutherland (review date 27 September 1990)
   8. William H. Pritchard (review date Summer 1991)
   9. Laurence Lerner (review date 20 July 1991)
   10. James Buchan (review date 30 May 1992)
   11. Brian Finney (essay date Summer 1992)
   12. D. J. Taylor (review date 5 June 1992)
   13. Chris Goodrich (review date 25 October 1992)
   14. Verlyn Klinkenborg (review date 23 November 1992)
   15. Michael Levenson (review date 18 January 1993)
   16. John Clute (review date 3 September 1993)
   17. Francis King (review date 11 September 1993)
   18. Gary Davenport (review date Spring 1994)
   19. John Peck (essay date September 1994)
   20. Nicholas Meyer (review date 25 June 1995)
   21. James Wood (review date 21 September 1995)
   22. Susana Onega with Peter Ackroyd (interview date 23 November 1995)
   23. Trev Broughton (review date 30 August 1996)
   24. John Clute (review date 27 September 1996)
   25. Helen Pike Bauer (review date Spring 1997)
   26. William Hutchings (review date Winter 1997)
   27. Aileen Ward (review date 1997)
   28. Michael Glover (review date 6 March 1998)
   29. Lavon B. Fulwiler (review date Spring 1999)
   30. Eric Korn (review date 2 April 1999)
   31. Leonard R. Koos (essay date Summer 1999)
   32. Peter Ackroyd with Francis Gilbert (interview date 20 December 1999-3 January 2000)
   33. Peter Green (review date 20 March 2000)
   34. Will Self (review date 16 October 2000)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright